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Pennsylvania Politics Today and Yesterday (Keystone Books)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.974804
EAN: 9780271002385
ISBN: 0271002387
Label: Pennsylvania State University Press
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 488
Publication Date: March 31, 1976
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Release Date: March 31, 1976
Studio: Pennsylvania State University Press
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Editorial Review:
A sort of rough justice characterized the Pennsylvania political scene, this book argues, if we define justice in Learned Hand's words as "the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society."According to the Prologue: "Reform always has worked better in Pennsylvania as an issue-based effort, rather than a broad political movement." According to the Epilogue: "Although 1978 was a year of intense competition, in the end--in revisions so typical of Pennsylvania--both the old and the new politics were refuted, while the comfortable middle-road was chosen."Beers explains the Keystone State's rejection of ideological extremes by reviewing its traditional virtues: tolerance of diversity, independence in thought and action, and patience under adversity. "Pennsylvania is the vest-pocket edition of the world," said Governor Shafer in 1967, "the ethnographic mosaic," said historian Phil Klein in 1976; "kind and mild, sort of non-Puritanical," said novelist John Updilke in 1977.The book's lively narrative begins with Boss Matt Quay forcing his way into the U.S. Senate in 1900, ends with Governor Dick Thornburgh balancing the taxpayers' demand for budge-cutting against his party leaders' itch for patronage. Between 1900 and 1979 the story is told of the rogues (Penrose, the Vares, and Cianfrani), the reformers (Pinchot, Leader, and Duff), and the greater number whose real achievements were dimmed by implications of corruption (Earle, Fine, and Shapp). On balance the author tends toward Henry Adams' assessment of the Pennsylvanian: "In practical matters it was the steadiest of all American types; perhaps the most efficient; certainly the safest.
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Rating: - The Definitive Book on Pennsylvania Political History
If there is one book that can be called "the definitive" word on Pennsylvania politics, this book by Paul Beers is it. Although printed in 1980 (thus missing events since then), this book captures the state's history to that point. It is filled with anecdotes, biographies, and the often entertaining stories of what happened amongst generations of Pennsylvania's politicians.
The author describes Pennsylvania as a state that throughout history has been composed of many diverse people ... Read More
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